


Hear Me Sing

by forestofsecrets



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hopeful Ending, set before season one of the anime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 17:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19480600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestofsecrets/pseuds/forestofsecrets
Summary: All Tokiya wanted to do was be able to sing.





	Hear Me Sing

**Author's Note:**

> I want to sing.

Tokiya Ichinose wasn’t able to sing freely. That was why Hayato was created. Under the guise of Hayato, Tokiya was free to sing as much as he wanted. He had long since harboured a feeling deep in his chest, going way back to when he was a child. That feeling was pure happiness. The only way to get it out was to shout out his feelings in the form of a song. Loud enough for anyone and everyone to hear, Tokiya sang.

To protect himself, he became Hayato. He couldn’t have been more thrilled to finally, finally have a platform to share the most joyous part of him with the world.

Initially, that was what he had believed. 

Then reality had hit him. Idols don’t just sing, and they especially don’t sing for themselves. They sing to bring smiles to the faces of their fans. They sing what songs they’re given to sing. They sing when they are allowed to sing.

When they weren’t singing, idols were doing countless other activities. Game shows, dramas, TV shows, movies, reality shows, quiz shows… Tokiya’s head was spinning after the first week of it. There was no time to eat or sleep. He was getting carted from one venue to the next, his producer trying to put him out there as a new idol.

Tokiya didn’t sing a single note in his first week. The closest he came to a harmony was when he was on his knees in a bathroom, when his stomach was too weak to handle the fatty foods he ate at dinner that evening. It was a dinner with a potential client and his producer so the restaurant was upscale. Tokiya had been surviving on protein bars and apples that week. Steak was above him.

At the end of the dinner, his producer sent him home with a word about a debut concert. That alone kept Tokiya smiling as he dry heaved into a toilet.

The concert made Tokiya nervous. But with the first inhalation of breath, those nerves evaporated. Here he was, singing in front of a live crowd. The songs were cheap but Tokiya tried to make them real. He added his own lyrics when the lyrics he had been given didn’t sit well with him. He was honestly and truly happy, radiating bliss in every smile and wink he sent into the crowd. 

The thundering applause he received at the end made the week before worth it. It made everything he had been through up until this point worth it. Even though he only had five songs to sing, he sang them with heart.

Slowly, Tokiya became more accustomed to being Hayato than himself. The strict and perfectionist Tokiya became a loose and silly Hayato. He traded being reserved to telling jokes. He got praised constantly for thinking on his feet during live game shows. He had perfected that wide smile down to a trademark grin. Tokiya had spent hours in front of a mirror practicing until his cheeks hurt and then some.

He never noticed the seed of longing taking root within him.

The seed grew far, far too quickly. It started within his chest and spread to his lungs. It choked him from the inside out. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t sing.

He hadn’t sung in weeks at this point. Every promising concert fell through. Every promise made to him was just a lie as he was driven to another TV show filming set.

Tokiya had to buy more pillow cases. Turns out that tears turned to stains after a while.

Crying, at least, was preferable to the torture that he had to endure some nights. Laying on his back, Tokiya had to force himself to breath. He clawed at his chest, leaving angry, red scores on it. His producer saw them once and assumed he had a lover. Tokiya’s schedule inexplicably got busier after that. But not with concerts, no, never with concerts.

He felt like he was slowly losing his sanity. Wake up, shower, get picked up, Activity A, Activity B, Meal A (lunch?), Activity C, Activity D, Meal B (dinner?), get dropped back off at his apartment. Tokiya felt like a dog being conditioned. Getting dropped back off in the evening meant he had to go to bed, in order to repeat the process all over again. But never with singing.

Tokiya could understand why some idols just snapped and tried to end it all.

That night, he coughed up petals into his sink. They were soaked in his spit. He washed them down the sink and shoved them out of his mind.

The amount that spawned from his chest only got worse. Quickly, far too quickly, petals turned into incomplete flower heads. Those, in turn, became full, blooming flowers. Tokiya didn’t care to look close enough to see what kind they were. It was the colours that caught his attention. Vibrant yellows, reds, and oranges left his lips. They were passionate colours. 

Looking at the flowers made Tokiya feel guilty. He always tried to get rid of them as fast as possible.

To remedy his disease, Tokiya tried singing when he was alone. He always needed to practice but maybe this could take the edge off. He sung in his morning shower, he sung in his dressing rooms. He sung before bed, twirling around his bedroom in a fictional routine only his heart knew.

But his body couldn’t keep up with him. He wheezed and choked when he moved too fast. His voice faltered, the words weren’t finding their way out. The roots had curled themselves all through him. Tokiya knew they were going for his heart.

He wanted to sing again. So badly, he was willing to do anything. Because if he didn’t, he knew it would kill him. Where did his joy go? Where did his happiness go? It was still there, but buried underneath roots so thick that his chest grew tight at the mere thought of singing.

He had to figure out a way to shine again, to be himself again. This constant tickling in his throat was one he had grown too accustomed to. He wanted it gone but he needed his soul to stay.

By a stroke of pure luck, Tokiya’s producer was able to secure him a concert. It was a small one, but that was because Tokiya swore up and down that he would write lyrics to six new songs and preform them. All within two weeks.

For the first time, Tokiya felt light. He felt like he was able to breathe. He didn’t gasp for air while simply having a conversation anymore. He was able to get through an entire dance number. His voice sounded amazing, no longer croaking like it was before.

Every single nerve in his body was singing in harmony with his beating heart. He had been waiting for this. His heart was screaming at him to let out everything he had been saving up. Every single note and melody he had held back had to come pouring out of him. Tokiya thought he was set to explode if they didn’t.

He was writing lyrics all night. He hadn’t meant to, but once he started he couldn’t stop. That left him utterly exhausted the next day, passing out more than once. But it was worth it. He had written and completed every song he had promised his producer. And so, the concert went forward.

His favourite song by far was one he had called Nanairo no Compass. Why he had chosen seven, he wasn’t sure. But Tokiya knew exactly why he had chosen to put a compass in the title of his song. He had lost his way. This song would ground him. He promised himself to look back on his song if he ever felt himself slipping away again. This song would save him.

He wrote all of his feeling into it. His tears, his confusion with himself, and his faith in the world. He sang the song live as sweetly as he could, not for the girls in the audience. But for himself and Hayato, who had become more apart of him then Tokiya ever could have thought.

But it didn’t stop the flowers. If Tokiya honestly, honestly thought that one concert was enough, he was a fool. This passion, this overflowing passion, couldn’t be satiated with a single concert. He had to have more and more. Tokiya knew he was made for this. His body, his voice, his soul, they were all made for standing on that stage.

After the concert, Tokiya hacked up the largest flowers he ever had. Beautifully white roses. Tokiya had to check for thorns because of the red stains on the petals.

He couldn’t use his voice the next morning. He tasted iron in his mouth all day. Tokiya didn’t understand it at all. Why was this happening to him? How did it turn out this way? He had only, only wanted to sing. Why wasn’t be able to now do that?

It got so frustrating that Tokiya took to screaming until he ruined his own voice. It didn’t leave a mess or mark up his body.

His act as Hayato was changing him. It was becoming too real. Tokiya responded better to his fake persona than his real self. But he felt Hayato even slipping away. His voice was becoming too weak, too strained. It was so tiring to stretch his cheeks into that wide smile. 

He kept his original copy of the lyrics to Nanairo no Compass. But the words that he had written when he was ecstatic didn’t resonate with him anymore. What was the point of making music when he wasn’t given the opportunity to sing it? His instrument was his voice, it was the best one he had. It was killing him to keep silent.

These feelings needed a way out.

Tokiya wished he could start over.

Hope came once more in the form of a crazy former idol. Shining Saotome, Tokiya knew of him. The man was a legend, his single sold millions of copies. He was now the headmaster of a very prestigious school, a school for upcoming idols and composers.

Tokiya made a deal and he never looked back. Every step he took towards becoming an idol known as Tokiya Ichinose made his chest feel just a little lighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this in one go. It's barely been touched since. I haven't allowed myself to edit it. It is a very personal story.
> 
> Made on 05/05/2018.


End file.
